Solid-state memory, such as flash, is currently in use in solid-state drives (SSD) to augment or replace conventional hard disk drives (HDD), writable CD (compact disk) or writable DVD (digital versatile disk) drives, collectively known as spinning media, and tape drives, for storage of large amounts of data. Flash and other solid-state memories have characteristics that differ from spinning media. Yet, many solid-state drives are designed to conform to hard disk drive standards for compatibility reasons, which makes it difficult to provide enhanced features or take advantage of unique aspects of flash and other solid-state memory. In a storage cluster environment, it may be difficult to maintain a consistent system state with distributed transaction and operation processing. One known mechanism for doing so, applying a global lock, during a transaction or operation, is effective but limits system bandwidth and throughput.
It is within this context that the embodiments arise.